10×10 American Reading Room

10×10 American Photobooks is a hands-on touring reading room, online community and publication featuring American artists’ photobooks from 1985 to 2013.

10×10 American Reading Room Tour

  • PGH Photo at Unsmoke Systems Artspace, Pittsburgh (27 – 28 April 2013)
  • Ten10 Studios, New York City (3 – 5 May 2013)
  • Tokyo Institute of Photography, Tokyo (11 September – 6 October 2013)

Press

Foam Magazine by Ken Schles (September 24, 2013)
American Photo by Dan Abbe (8 May 2013)

About 10×10 American Photobooks

American Photobooks is a multi-platform photobook event with a reading room, online component and publication that presents American artists’ photobooks from 1985 to 2013. The project previewed in New York and Pittsburgh in April and May 2013. It traveled to the Tokyo Institute of Photography for a 4-week run, which coincided with the Tokyo Book and Photo Fairs in September 2013. At the end of the project, all the books from the Reading Room were donated to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography’s Library. 10×10 American Photobooks is co-sponsored by the International Center of Photography Library, Tokyo Institute of Photography and the Photobook Facebook Group.

10×10 American Photobooks presents 100 contemporary American artists’ photobooks selected by 10 specialists in a reading room and an additional 200 books online from the perspective of 10 American and 10 Japanese photobook specialists, who have each been asked to select 10 books. The project is accompanied by a bilingual English-Japanese publication, designed by bookdummypress, which documents all the selected books along with essays highlighting different aspects of contemporary American photobooks. In addition, Self Publish, Be Happy has produced two pamphlets for 10×10 American Photobooks Tokyo reading room, featuring newly commissioned work by American photographers and writers.

The focus of the event is to offer both the general and photo-specific public the opportunity to see photobooks, which are rarely seen beyond private libraries or independent American photography circles. By emphasizing the selections from the 10 reading room specialists and 20 online specialists, along with essays from noted writers, 10×10 provides a concise and well-researched selection for both the seasoned and new viewer of contemporary American artists’ photobooks.

10×10 American Reading Room Specialists

Shannon Michael Cane (Printed Matter), Lindsey Castillo, Rebecca O’Keefe, and Grant Willing (The Camera Club of New York), Bruno Ceschel(Self Publish, Be Happy), Christina Labey (Conveyor Arts), Larissa Leclair (Indie Photobook Library), Leigh Ledare (Photographer), Harper Levine and John Gossage (Harper’s Books and Loosestrife Editions), David Senior (Museum of Modern Art Library), David Solo (Collector), and Alec Soth and Brad Zellar (Little Brown Mushroom).

10×10 American Online Specialists / English Language

Adam Bell (Photographer and Writer), Tom Claxton (Claxton Projects), Jörg Colberg (Conscientious), Matt Johnson (The Photobook Club), Melanie McWorter (photo-eye Bookstore), Eric Miles (photo-eye Auctions), James Pomerantz (The New Yorker), Heidi Sanders (6 Decades Books), Douglas Stockdale (The Photobook) and Philip Tomaru (Arts & Sciences Projects).

10×10 American Online Specialists / Japanese Language

Kazuhiro Yamaji (Flying Books), Takayuki Kobayashi (flotsam Books), Yumi Goto (Reminders Project), Taka Kawachi (amana photo collection),
Standard Bookstore in Osaka, Ihiro Hayami and Atsushi Hamanaka (PHaT PHOTO and twelvebooks), Sawako Fukai (Artbeat Publishers), Mika Kobayashi (The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), Akira Higashikata (Nitesha) and Yoshikatsu Fujii (Photobook Club Tokyo).

10×10 American Publication Writers

Bryan Formhals (LVP Magazine), William E. Jones (Artist, Filmmaker and Writer), Evan Mirapaul (Photobook Collector and Blogger), Andrew Roth (PPP Editions and Roth Gallery), Michael Saur (Writer), Ken Schles (Photographer and Writer), David Levi Strauss (Writer and Chairman, MFA Art Criticism & Writing, School of Visual Arts), Miwa Susuda (Dashwood Books and Session Press), Tony White (Decker Library, the Maryland Institute of Contemporary Art) and Bernard Yenelouis (Photographer and Writer).